Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Italian Politicians Are Never Boring

 
You know how those Italians love to dress well. Custom-designed clothing is nothing unusual. However…

Roberto Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League Party in Italy, seems to be leaning American in his new attire. According to EITB, the Basque Information Channel, Calderoli has had some T-shirts designed and is wearing them for all to see. They are, of course, the Mohammed Bomb-Head image, done tastefully on a black background.

Not only is he wearing them, he’s handing them out to whomever wants one, and he has something to say about the cartoon situation.

According to Ansa, the Italian news agency, Calderoli doesn’t think much of the offended hysteria currently being exhibited by Muslims in Italy. He thinks the time for dialogue is over:

"We have to put an end to this story that we can talk to these people. They only want to humiliate people. And what are we becoming? The civilization of melted butter?" Calderoli said.

One might be tempted to think that Calderoli could embarrass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government. However, the PM himself caused his own small storm during the weekend when he said:

"I am the Jesus Christ of politics… I sacrifice myself for everyone."

Hmmm… these Italian politicians have it all sewed up: melted butter and Jesus Christ comparisons.

Makes you wonder if the Italian Catholics are going to issue a fatwah against He-Who-Thinks-He-Is-Jesus. Oh. That's right: westerners don't bother with fatwahs. They issue Temporary Detaining Orders and have the poor soul evaluated by a psychiatrist.

Come to think of it, we have our own imams… except we call them shrinks. I prefer the shrink method, given its lower mortality rate.

You may purchase your own T shirt here. Tell them Allah sent you. And while you’re there, take a look at the proprietor’s hate mail.


Hat tips to Lizardoids: Thanks to Kilgore Trout for the original link to the Reuters story — though we siphoned through to a Reuter’s-free source, since al-Reuters causes the same reaction in me that pork does for Muslims. And thanks, also, to Peter Verkooijen for the link to the T shirts.

3 comments:

ShrinkWrapped said...

Just to have it put on the record:
Neither I, nor any other Shrink I know, has ever taken part in the decapitation of any poor soul who claimed to be Jesus Christ. In fact, in the United States, we can't even require anyone to take their medicine if they don't want to; the Supreme Court has held that there is a right to be crazy, so who am I to argue?

Dymphna said...

Hey, shrinkwarped -- A TDO isn't the same as a decapitation order...but you'd think so, the way some of them go on about it..

And NAMI is arguing that we have an obligation to help insure that people take their meds...I used to follow one guy around with his.

Fortunately, there are private groups who, with little funding, try to manage life for some of the more vulnerable among us.

X said...

Thought for the Day this morning had a salvation army captain doing a quick comparison of the differences in reaction between the muslims to their cartoos, and christians to Berlusconi comparing himself to jesus. Some were offended, he said. as it could easilly be interpreted as blasphemous to compare yourself to jesus, but most will have shrugged it off as poliical rhetoric, and perhaps even laughed.

Can you imagine the reaction if he'd compared himself to mohammed?